The Eight - Part One: Different Eyes See Different Things

The light in the school cellar comes from a little window on the ceiling. When you look outside, you see nothing but the sky. No one can see you from outside and no one ever comes here. That’s why we do.
We’re all sitting on pillows on the floor, forming a circle, except where there is an empty pillow.
The albino boy with the red dyed hair is reading the list of our names from a piece of paper.
Bolt, William. Present.
Decker, Christopher. Present.
Elliott, Amber Jade. Present.
Foster, Jessica. Present.
Frost, Belladonna. Present.
Hester, Hester. Present.
Hill, Seth. Absent? Absent.
Wynn, Cassandra. Present.
Seth never misses meetings. They help him calm down. It must have been something really important. We’d text him, but that’s one of our rules – no cell phones. Not only because they distract but also because they’re used to communicate with people. Other people. And in these meetings, no one matters but us. That’s what it is all about. Us.
Will puts the piece of paper back into his bag and looks at us expectantly.
I pick a little mirror and my eyeliner pencils from my bag and start correcting the brown eyeliner around the amber eye and the black around the jade eye. Amber Jade. The nice cold smart lazy double, girl. Only my clothes aren’t parted in half.
I notice everyone’s still quiet and look around. You can tell Hest is dying to say something but she’s too shy to be the one talking first. Cassie looks a bit down, staring at the floor and ignoring Christopher’s discrete tries to get her attention. Belladonna is undoubtedly sad, the necklace her ex-girlfriend gave her still hanging around her neck. Broken hearts are not our usual problems, so we don’t really know what to tell her.
Christopher sighs in impatience and gives up on Cassie. ‘So, Jesse, I haven’t seen you in Maths classes lately…’
Jesse ties her hair back and avoids our eyes. ‘I uh… I’ve been skipping classes...’ she looks at me, ‘Our “parents” don’t know.’
‘Of course they don’t,’ I reply ‘he acts like he doesn’t notice you’re missing. You’re still going out with him, aren’t you?’
‘Not that much right now. Like you’ve noticed, our parents are really annoying at the moment. And his wife is almost always around, he hasn’t got much time alone. And, of course, since Polly Weiss found out every teacher was told. And he doesn’t want to risk them proving that what she said is true.’
‘Oh, dear Polly,’ Cassie whispers, ‘Always so nice to us.’
‘She always does the right things and that’s the problem.’ Will says, ‘We always do shit. Except for you, Hest. We destroy stuff with our minds when we get angry. We fight with other guys in the corridors. We fuck our teachers. We kiss people of the same gender as us inside the school. We skip classes. We’re horrible and she’s adorable. And she loves it.’
‘AND she’s normal’, Belladonna adds.
‘Well, now guess who I’m going on holidays with’ Hest says and we all look at her in semi-shock.